Ubuntu – Will removing Empathy (for Pidgin) break the desktop integration

The IM system in Ubuntu is called Telepathy. Empathy is a GUI for some aspects of it. But Telepathy is really different from Pidgin. It is designed to be accessed by different applications at the same time, for instance. IE, a contact application would simply make a request for a phone call, and then you'd get a GUI to end the phone call, etc. The contact application would not have to worry about the kind of protocol used, etc. That's Telepathys job.

So you could use Pidgin instead of Empathy, but Pidgin cannot replace it because it's a completely different thing. You'd want to get a plugin to integrate it with the message indicator. I don't know if such a plugin exists, but you could always program it yourself. Both Pidgin and Indicators have good APIs and documentation.

Pidgin could potentially be used as a GUI for Telepathy though.

I think that not exist, look here: What lenses for Unity are available?

Obviously these aren't all the lenses available but I don't find anything about pidgin or empathy.